So it’s spring, and our bathroom window is permanently jammed open, and there are no screens on the windows in our apartment, here in Australia.
The other day I came home from class to find this guy perched on the chair in our bathroom:
Furrier in person.
You can probably tell by the chair, but he was several inches across. I thought a few things:
- I wonder if this is the most poisonous spider in the world, which lives exclusively in the Sydney region and I have no idea what it looks like?
- How close can I get to take a picture before it jumps on me?
- This spider is only the most obvious giant spider in the bathroom.
He was looking pretty stationary, so I decided to go downstairs and hope that he didn’t migrate to the bedroom or anything. I don’t like to kill things that are bigger than a quarter if I can help it, because I don’t like to experience the crunch and squish. So I waited for T to come home, and he didn’t want to kill it either because it was too fuzzy and he felt bad for it, so he put it in a Tupperware and released it into the wilds of Glebe. I asked him, “Do you think that was a huntsman?” (giant but harmless house spiders of Australia) and he said, “No, it was way too small.” We decided that it might have been a baby huntsman, since it’s spring and all.
Here, by the way, is a picture of a huntsman:
Yeah, we definitely need to move house before summer gets into full swing, because now that thing is out there and it knows how to get back in.
We are looking for an apartment. This is our fourth week of looking, and so far I’d say we’ve seen about 15-20 apartments. The way they do it here is like this - the landlord contracts out to a real estate company who holds an inspection (open house), which usually lasts 15 minutes. Most of the inspections are on Saturday mornings all around the same time, so you create a plan of attack during the week and run around on Saturday morning trying to see all of the apartments you want to see, which is actually impossible. I usually call the real estate agents beforehand to try to see if the potential apartments line up with our basic criteria, so that we don’t spend precious minutes on Saturday morning going to see an apartment that ends up not having a stove (that really happens).
But the real estate agents usually don’t care about me or the apartments (that Aussie customer service ethic shining through), so our conversations usually go like this:
Me: I was wondering, does that unit have a stove?
Agent: I don’t know. That’s what the inspection is for.
I’m pretty much 100% sure that the inspection is not for the agent to inspect the apartment, but whatever.
They also have this thing where you can “reserve” an apartment you really like by giving the agent a few hundred dollars on the spot, which makes the landlord look at your application first, and you get the money back if you’re not approved. This sometimes causes the small crowd of people who show up to the 15 minute inspection to push to be the first to race through so they can come back out and give the agent money.
The good thing is that the application process is all extremely regimented and the real estate companies act like disinterested middlemen between you and the landlord, whom you never actually meet. There are rules governing what they can and can’t say about you to another real estate company when that company asks for a reference on you, so you never have to deal with a weirdo landlord who hates you for no reason and won’t give you a good reference.
So T and I won these tickets to see a matinee of the Australian production of Avenue Q. Basically, the day we landed in Sydney from the US a couple of weeks ago, we found a copy of this free weekly magazine called The Brag and it had this thing in it like “Email us and win tickets to Avenue Q” and we were like, whatever, this magazine is like a week old, probably someone already did it, but we did it anyway and bam they gave us some tickets. I guess no one else reads that section.
Well I happened to have seen Avenue Q on Broadway and thought it was funny and that T would like it, so I was pretty happy. Plus he Googled it and found out that the cheapest tickets are like $79.
It reminded me of going to a show in New York in every way except that they didn’t give out programs, they sold them for $15 apiece. I asked the usher if they had regular programs, aside from the souvenir programs, and he was like “Um, no, theaters don’t do that.” I could have been like, “Actually, buttface, they do,” but I didn’t think that would make me any friends, so I just sat down and imagined information about the show.
The main reason we wanted the program was to see if any of the actors were American, but it turned out to be more fun to guess based on whether they slipped up and sounded Australian. Most of them did once or twice, but it wasn’t really obvious. The funny part (to me) was the set. The show is set in Brooklyn, and this production seemed to be set in the part of Brooklyn where the housing stock is mainly Australian condos. It was way too clean, for one thing, and also way too pastel. Also the doorknobs were up high like Australian doorknobs and the tops of the buildings were infested with those old-fashioned TV antennae that I now associate largely with Australia (not many people here have cable).
I am kind of obsessed with the differences in building materials and styles of house between the two countries so I had fun picking out everything that I would change about the set, and then annoying T by telling him all about it. Halfway through the second act I was like “I’ve got it! The frames around the windows need to be black instead of white!” and T was like, “…What? I guess.” (Later I Googled the original NY set and was vindicated.)
Anyway it was a good show and we both had a great time - I recommend it if you’ve got 79 Australian dollars kicking around in your pocket.
Ice cream makers in Australia need to get a grip. I say this because somehow, no one here has figured out yet that ice cream can have stuff in it. I’m not even that big on ice cream, but I find myself paying more attention to it now that I know I couldn’t even theoretically, if I wanted to, go out and get a pint of something that’s half-ice-cream-half-brownie.
You see, I am literally only interested in ice cream when it has tons of brownies and/or cookies and/or cookie dough and/or moose fudge prints involved. And it is not possible to buy ice cream here that takes this concept beyond “chocolate chip.” Oh, no, wait, they also have slightly larger chocolate chips.
Ok, to be completely honest, they also have cookies ‘n cream. But that is it. Nothing more adventurous than that, just six different brands of plain vanilla and plain chocolate. It’s sort of weird. I mean, does nobody here actually like things in their ice cream, or is this just a glaringly obvious business opportunity?
Get with the program, Australia.
This isn’t recent news apparently, but I happened to mention something last night like “Isn’t it funny to watch the British Parliament on TV because they’re all shouting and being silly,” and my husband was like “Wait, watch this.”
Apparently the Australian Parliament is also very silly. According to my husband, this is a clip from back in February when the Parliament had just started working on Fridays, and Kevin Rudd (the Prime Minister) wasn’t there that Friday because he was off doing other Prime Ministery things. So the other guys got all mad that they had to work on Friday and he didn’t show up. They are also apparently upset because even though they have to show up on Fridays, they don’t get to have Question Time on Fridays. I don’t know what that is, but apparently they actually call it Question Time, which I think is pretty funny. It must have been named by whoever thought up the name for Sorry Day.
There’s probably more to it than this, like maybe they were all working on Fridays before, just in other capacities or something. I don’t actually know anything about this other than what my husband told me. But it seems stereotypically Australian and hilarious that they are getting all in an uproar about having to work on Fridays. And I like how they’re all sprawled out around the chamber just picking their noses and stuff and going “Oh no you didn’t!”
Also, the speaker lady keeps telling people to sit down, and no one will sit down and they’re all just laughing at her, but when she stands up everyone immediately sits down. Why don’t they just get a talking stick or something if it’s that easy?
Pubs in Sydney are different from bars in New York. For one thing, they are always on a corner. I’m not sure why this is.
This pub is in Glebe, not far from our apartment.
Also, they are generally large and called hotels and almost always serve a full menu. The alternative to the big hotels/pubs on corners would be a cocktail bar or a wine bar, which also seem to be pretty common. (They have a pretty popular one of those on the main street in Glebe, although you’d have to be super in love with cocktails to really get into it since each drink is about $14-16).
The big hotels all have a lot in common… I think I found it striking when I got here because it seemed like they’re all owned by the same two guys, and then someone told us that is actually the case, so I guess it makes sense. Some of them have been updated to look flashier or nicer and some haven’t. They all feel vaguely utilitarian; they like to use those carpets that are popular in casinos and hotel lobbies, and lots of chrome barstools and brushed metal frames for advertisement posters and things like that. The mood of each pub and whether or not it’s good is entirely set by who’s there when you go there - I guess that’s the case with any bar, but it feels more so. Almost like the government put up the same pub in every neighborhood and then nature took its course.
The reason why I’m thinking about this is that I was always wondering “How come no one ever branches out and sets up a smaller bar that isn’t on a corner?” and then I read an article in the local newspaper about how they’ve just changed the bar regulations and now people will be allowed to do that, so apparently it was against the law somehow before. Everyone in the paper was excited because now the nightlife will be revitalized, so that sounds like interesting news. It seems like they have a lot of bar-related laws here; for instance instead of having a city-wide closing time for bars, they choose a separate time for each individual bar. I’m not sure how they figure it out, but some bars have to close at midnight, some stay open till 3 or 4, and some can stay open 24 hours (I know it’s not up to the individual bars because angry bar owners write into the paper complaining about the random early closing time that was inflicted on them).
Also a really controversial thing in bars here is the pokies, the video poker machines that take up a room in just about every bar. They usually try to hide the pokie room behind a curtain or something because they know how depressing it is and how much everyone hates it. (Gambling is really popular here actually… there are two racing tracks (greyhounds and horses) within walking distance of our apartment, and some pubs have little Keno cards on every table in addition to the pokies. So I guess when I say that everyone hates the pokies, I mean that everyone I’ve ever talked to about it hates the pokies but the four guys in the pokie room are stuffing so much cash into the machines that no bar will get rid of them.) I think the reason that people hate them even though they sort of hide them away is that theoretically, that space could be used for live music and things like that, or that it actually did before the pokies came along, or something. (Also, you know, because they’re icky.) I was Googling for an image of a pokie room and I came across this picture attached to an article about how much Russell Crowe hates pokie rooms, so I can only assume this is a picture of him yelling about pokies.
"POKIES!"
One of the best things about the big hotels is that they have lots of events going on. I really like pub trivia, so I’m definitely in luck on that score. They also seem to do a lot of crab racing and yabbie racing (another type of shellfish apparently) and frog racing and just generally a lot of racing of small animals.
BUT I am excited to see what new places might pop up now that the law is changed. We shall see… we shall see…
Yesterday was Sunday so we mobilized ourselves and went to the Museum of Sydney. It’s basically a local history museum, and I found it to be pretty interesting. For one thing, I learned that the First Fleet involved like 11 ships. I’ve heard about the First Fleet (being the first colonization of Australia by the British) and although I obviously realize that a fleet involves more than one boat, in my mind it was sort of like a little Mayflower, just with convicts.
I didn’t want to take a picture since usually museums frown on that, but someone else on the Internet was much braver than I am.
These colonizers did not mess around.
Then we went walking around the Rocks (historical/touristy neighborhood near Circular Quay) looking for a pub to have dinner in. The markets were on, although we didn’t really browse since we did that a few weeks ago and our real mission was to find a suitable pub. But I did take a picture to capture the atmosphere - I don’t like taking pictures of crowds because I don’t want to be weird, but only two or three guys appear to be staring at me wondering why I’m taking their picture. Next time I’ll get T to pretend to stick his head in there.
Markets, the Rocks
Anyway this story has a terribly sad ending because we never found a suitable pub. Everything was either closed or else the menu didn’t really get beyond steak, sausages, hamburgers, meat pies, and fourteen other things involving meat. I’ve decided I have to put my foot down because I generally don’t enjoy eating meat and I’ve been just happening to eat a ton of it since we got here since that is about what there is to eat in a lot of situations. And I’m getting a bit “meh” about the usual alternative option at pubs, which is fish and chips. I do like fried fish, but I feel like eating a big pile of deep-fry on a regular basis is probably not the best idea.
The good thing is that occasionally, the rare place that offers veggie burgers will have this awesome kind of veggie burger that I hadn’t experienced before we got here. They are breaded and crunchy on the outside, which I suspect is probably not any healthier for you, but they are yummy. They seem to be referring to those when they say veggie burger and they always call the other kind lentil burgers (and in restaurants they weirdly always serve them with some kind of yogurt).
So we came home and ordered pizza. Pizzas here are much smaller, more like a pizza for one or two people than an entire family type thing. Everyone here always wants to talk about how hilariously huge the pizzas are in North America (people, you’re not supposed to eat the whole thing by yourself!). Also, you can’t just be like “Can I get half pepperoni half cheese” - they like to glam up the idea of pizza by only offering set combos with names, such as the “Godfather” or the “Mamma Mia” or whatever and each one has like ten things on it. Then they chop all of those things really small. At first I was not that excited about pizza here because I resented the glamorous gourmet treatment and I just wanted a plain piece of Sicilian with maybe some vegetables on it (I sacreligiously do not like the flat NY style pizza), but I’m ok with it now and ordering pizza is my new guilty pleasure. Although when I compare this pizza in my mind to even chain pizza from the US… well. Wait a minute… since when did I even care that much about pizza? Hmm.
Btw the Australian version of Domino’s hilariously offers a “7 Meats” pizza. I’m sure if they were really trying, they could have gone to Wikipedia and discovered at least three more meats to throw in there.
This blog has some catching up to do, since it didn’t start itself until just now and I’ve already been in Sydney since February. How about a really long but still incomplete list of observations I’ve been making.
THINGS I LIKE
- The zebra crossings… basically when there are striped crossings on the street, you can just walk in front of cars, like on a college campus. Such a good idea.
- The beach… I’ve never lived within an hour of an ocean beach that wasn’t Coney Island (which has its own charms, but water you want to touch isn’t one of them). I think my husband was sort of puzzled by how much I wanted to go to the beach every weekend when we first got here (we had to get our summer in while we had the chance!). The walk along the beaches with all the stairs and natural rock formations is very beautiful. So far I like Bronte the best - less people than some of the others, plus it has that nice rock overhang for ridiculously white people like me to sit under and avoid melanoma.
- The birds… although sometimes they can be really obnoxious (I’m looking at you, cockatoos) it’s really new for me to live in a place that has parrots flying around. I even like those ibis guys like the pic I have up there, who basically wander around in parks. My husband hates them because they’re park-rats, but I think they’re pretty and I still take pictures of them like an Australian tourist taking a picture of a squirrel in NY.
- The health care… obviously something that I knew was going to be great, but I just need to confirm that it has lived up to my expectations. Actually, the first clinic I found that accepted “bulk billing” (apparently they have a choice whether to accept the national health care) was really bad. I had a terrible experience with the doctor there, who basically yelled at me and confused me and then said she was going to have to explain it to my husband because obviously I was too dumb to get it. BUT the next one I found is amazing and definitely one of the top-two doctor’s offices I’ve been to, maybe the best. The doctor I have there is great, the place itself is really clean and cool (I think it’s in an art gallery somehow), and when I’ve called there they can always see me like the next day if I want. They’re called East Sydney Doctors and I recommend you go there.
- The coffee situation… I was a little bummed when I realized I wouldn’t be able to order my standard, percolated black coffee, but flat whites are growing on me. I also enjoy the electric kettle we have at home, which grossed me out at first with its exposed metal bits inside heating up the water, but actually comes quite in handy for making instant coffee.
- The tram thing… even though it’s kind of expensive compared to the buses and it doesn’t really go anywhere, I like that light-rail tram thing in Sydney. It’s really clean and fast and lets me pretend I live in a future-world with ideal public transportation.
- The Asian food… yes, there are Asian grocery stores and restaurants in NYC, but I like these ones better. I’ve never really understood the principle that ethnic food closer to the country of origin should be better, because the people cooking Vietnamese food in NYC are also from Vietnam. But somehow it just works out that way. This one Thai restaurant in Newtown, Thai-riffic, has amazing pad se ew.
- Fake meat in a can… when I first saw it, I was completely grossed out and said no way. And when I opened the can, it looked like dog food. But when we ate it, it tasted just like the frozen Morningstar stuff we used to get, except it was significantly less expensive. (This does not mean that I’m going to start trying the other weird things from the seemingly popular can-aisle, like spaghetti in a can, spaghetti with cheese in a can, hot dogs in a can, or a zillion kinds of baked beans.)
- TAFE… this is a community college type-thing where apparently, you can get a degree in a practical area for an extremely small amount of money. This even applies to me, with my spouse limbo-visa.
- The Fish Market… I’m sure they probably have these in NY, but I never went to one there and anyway this one is really nice and right near our apartment. They have lots of seafood, obviously, along with a few more touristy things like artisanal bakeries and fancy cheese and whatnot.
- No high-fructose corn syrup… even things in the grocery store that look junk-foody seem to have relatively sane lists of ingredients.
THINGS I’M GETTING USED TO
- The Internet… the Internet setup here is kind of weird. Since no one has cable TV, they have to put it through the phone lines, which is fine, except that this quasi-government agency called Telstra owns all of the buildings that they need to get into to set up your Internet. What this means is that even if you choose another company to provide your Internet, you still have to pay Telstra for a landline phone for a month so that they can set it up, which is totally backward and makes no sense at all. It’s a complete racket and it was such a HUGE hassle dealing with Telstra (and the post office, who is weirdly their business partner in the game of providing people with phones… I know, wtf). And then, once you have your Internet, it’s metered, so that you pay for a certain amount each month and if you go over that you get “shaped,” which means that your Internet quality goes down to worse than dialup. Basically, Internet here is weird. Oh, and Hulu and the other providers of legitimate TV-on-the-Internet block access here, which is kind of annoying. Oh, also? No online shopping. It’s funny how many Internet-related things you take for granted living in the US.
- The shopping hours… it doesn’t actually affect me that much because I don’t do very much shopping that isn’t grocery-related, but it’s been mildly annoying on a few occasions how things tend to close early and randomly here. And I find it amusing that “Open 7 Days” is something that stores can be proud of.
- The traffic system… I realize that this is something that is going to be hilarious and incomprehensible to me in six months, but it’s hard to describe how awkward I still feel crossing the street here. People always ask if it seems weird to have the driver on the other side of the car, and I say no because I don’t spend that much time in cars, but it definitely does seem weird to cross the street. All of the lights here are really long because they seem to have a separate turn for every possible thing a car could want to do. And I’m too scared to jaywalk because I don’t understand the system and the cars here don’t seem that comfortable with people walking. Basically, I’m going to get hit by a car.
- The sidewalks… they’re so little! At least in Glebe, where we live. But just wait your turn, don’t walk in the street, because the cars drive right next to the curb and see above.
- The customer service… I’ve heard that Americans in customer service can be fakely over-friendly, but… I want that back now, please.
- The bars… we like to go see bands and stuff, and we just haven’t found that many great places to go out here yet. In good time…
- The expensive second-hand stores and the lack of Craigslist… all the thrift stores I’ve found here have been weirdly expensive, and no one uses Craigslist. This makes it hard to get things for free or cheap. (But not impossible! Some savvy Aussies have figured out that all the Americans here are reading Craigslist, and that is how we got all of our chairs. It can also be a good thing to be one of five people reading Craigslist, because we got a free engagement photo shoot that way too. )
Anyway, I expect all of these “annoying” things to not be so annoying given time - that’s how it works, right? And they’re far outweighed by the positives, the main one of which I forgot to put - my awesome husband, for whom I would probably put up with another month or two of dealing with Telstra.
